


The Butter Cake Story

by Jenwryn



Category: Death Note
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-26
Updated: 2010-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'You dress like an unrepentant whore', L observes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Butter Cake Story

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this months ago. The .doc says January, but I think the original draft was actually older than that. It's not terribly polished, but I'm kind of aiming to tidy my hard-drive out these holidays. The title is what I called it during it's WIP stage, and apparently it stuck.
> 
> Post-canon; Mello is a grown-up.
> 
> And the fact that it even exists is pretty much thanks to Zeda. ♥;

"You dress like an unrepentant whore," L observes, barely raising his gaze from the cake he's busy dissecting.

Mello hooks his ankle around the door and slams it shut. He leans against it, one boot behind him, up against the hardwood. "Really," he says, his voice as dispassionate as L's. "And I suppose you'd know all about whores?"

L finishes picking the raisins from his butter cake, then smiles slightly, and confesses, "Not from personal experience, no. But I'm a detective, Mello. I've dealt with all kinds of people. And I recognise a whore when I see one. But that, you know, wasn't actually the point of my statement."

"No?"

"No. My emphasis was upon the words _dress like_ and _unrepentant_. You're a sham, Mello. I don't believe a second of it."

Mello's face flushes. He crosses the space between them in two steps, planting his hands hard against the table top. The china rattles as he demands, "You don't? You want to know how many men I've gone down on? You want to know how many faceless bastards have ridden my arse? You want numbers, L?"

L puts down his fork, carefully, as if it were a significant button in a nuclear reactor. "You insist upon missing my point, Mello. You should have left your rosary behind, if you truly wanted me to believe that you don't _care_ about the things you've done, in the time we've been apart. You care. You're not as tough as you pretend. You're not as shameless."

Mello snorts. He sits in the chair opposite L's; face furious, eyes averted. "No?"

"No."

There's a silence, for a moment. A weird hush, from outside, slips in and curls around them. Mello reaches out and prods at one of L's discarded raisins, in the vague and futile hope that they might actually reveal themselves to be chocolate chips, despite the fact that logic has already ruled that possibility out. Limiting himself instead, therefore, to stealing L's coffee – and adding more cream to it, with a spoon that glints with the dirty shine of real silver – Mello screws his face up, and announces, "I should never have come here. It's preposterous. And this conversation is pointless. What do you want me to say, L? That I feel bad about the shit I've done? Fine, I feel bad. About some of it, anyway. Or maybe you want me to say that I deserve to go to hell. Well, that's not news to me either."

The coffee is richer than Mello had expected, almost sweet in its bitter strength. He schools his face not to show how much he likes it.

"I wanted to see you," L says, shrugging. He's carving his cake into bite-sized pieces.

"Since when do you play with your food?" Mello asks. "I mean, I know you always have, but... since when do you play with your food, without actually eating it?"

L frowns. He sits up slightly, pushing his place away from him with a hiss, as if he were suddenly disenchanted by the entire process.

Mello puts the coffee down, and quirks his eyebrows.

L is playing with the cutlery now. Mello twists slightly, as though the spoons and the cake forks are his insides, being manipulated by those long, pale fingers.

"You always were stubborn," L is saying. "Even when you were small, so small; much too small, really. I remember when Watari brought you to me, that first day, I remember..."

"I idolised you," Mello observes, off the cuff. Just because he can. Just because the coffee has warmed his insides, just because he's angry at having come simply because L had called; just because it's a way to pretend that that past tense is still an accurate verb choice.

"Yes," L says. One of the teaspoons slips to the floor, clinging, making the both of them jump slightly. L huffs, scooping all the silverware together and dumping it in a jangling heap at the centre of the table. The plate with the butter cake has, at some point, entirely disappeared.

"We all did."

"Yes."

Mello pushes at the pile of cutlery. The teaspoons ring like tiny bells. He grazes a black nail against L's white hand. L pulls away, then pauses, fingers hovering at the edge of the table; his knuckles are ships, about to topple off the world's edge. Mello doesn't move at all. Instead, he waits, counting out silent numbers in his mind, until L brings his hand slowly back; not touching Mello, but resting close enough for Mello to touch him, should he wish to do so. Mello reaches forty, then stretches his thumb sideways.

He strokes the side of L's hand, softly.

L trembles.

"It was my fault, that you were killed," the older detective says. "You, and Matt. Watari. You died because of me."

Mello makes a sighing noise. He turns L's hand over and begins to trace the fine creases in L's palm, as if he were planning on reading him his fortune. "Matt doesn't mind," he says, marking out a line, from L's pointer finger, to the pale blue of veins at his wrist. "Matt has never minded. He's not like—he's forgiving. You know."

"I know. But you?"

The blond shrugs, easy. "I made a bet, on the theology front, and I lost. This wasn't what I was expecting. I'm hardly going to complain though, am I? It could have been so much worse. Would have been, had I been correct. And Near is still alive, the little punk; he'll do okay. You'd have picked him to be your successor, anyway, in the end, wouldn't you?"

L raises his gaze from their hands, and stares. His eyes are dark, black; forever, incarnate.

Mello smiles. "I'll throw a tantrum some other time, don't worry."

L unfurls his empty hand, grips it to the edge of the table, then pushes himself upwards, just a little, leaning across the spoons, and the cups, and Mello's gentle touch.

"You always were too beautiful, when you smiled," he says, as though it aches somewhere inside of him.

L's words brush Mello's face warmly, and Mello shivers. Their breathing mingles, all coffee and air and the sweet of the raisins from the plate, which lingers still, even though the cake itself is vanished.

"Eternity is a long time, if you're planning on doing something you might regret, L," Mello whispers.

"I think I choose to disbelieve in regret, at this point."

Mello laughs.

L's lips are smiling, as he kisses him.


End file.
